Finally, Blackstone called in Ed Camden, who had been his primary spokesman for a year.
“Have you heard anything more about it?” he asked, lighting a cigar and offering one to Camden, who passed.
“About what, sir?”
“The Myshko mission, of course.”
Camden shook his head. “I’ve spoken to my former colleagues at NASA and elsewhere, and no one knows anything. Most of them think it’s a totally false lead, that your friends in the Pentagon and the White House are trying to divert you from your purpose.”
“They’re doing a damned good job of it,” admitted Blackstone. “I’ll tell you the truth, Ed. All logic says nothing happened because there sure as hell weren’t any consequences, and we live in a universe of cause and effect. No effect? Then there was probably no cause.”
“Well, there you have it, sir,” said Camden.
“It seems so,” agreed Blackstone. Suddenly he frowned. “But damn it, Ed, nobody in the Pentagon or NASA is subtle enough for this to be a ruse. Their idea of distracting me would be to release a description of a four-armed fifteen-foot-tall green man riding a thoat, or whatever the hell Edgar Rice Burroughs called it.” He paused, took another puff of the cigar, grimaced. “Something happened on that Myshko mission, something they don’t want us to know about.” Suddenly he got to his feet, strolled over to the window, and stared up at the sunlit sky, wishing the Moon were visible. “But what the hell could it be that didn’t keep Myshko from returning to Earth, didn’t stop any of the Apollo missions, and yet needs a continuing fifty-year cover-up?” He shook his head. “God, it sounds crazy just describing it!”
“That’s why we haven’t uncovered anything,” said Camden. “It is crazy.”
“No,” answered Blackstone adamantly. “I’ve always listened to my gut, and my gut tells me something happened, something they don’t want me to know.”
“You?” repeated Camden, surprised even after all these years at his boss’s ego.
“All of us,” conceded Blackstone. “Everyone.” He paused and stared off into space, as if at something only he could see. “And I’m going to find out what it is.”
“How? We’ve pulled just about every string we’ve got.”
“Culpepper.”
Camden looked around, frowning.
“It’s a man, not a vegetable,” continued Blackstone.
“Oh? The guy from NASA?”
Blackstone nodded. “Jerry Culpepper. He’s a good man.”
“He’s a loyal man,” said Camden. “He spouts the company line.”
“True.”
“Well, then?”
“He’s also a moral man. Eventually, he won’t be able to spout this nonsense any longer.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“I’m a pretty good judge of character,” answered Blackstone. “I offered him a job.”
“My job?” demanded Camden.
“Something similar.” Blackstone shrugged off the other man’s obvious concern. “I can keep you both busy.”
“When does he start?”
“He turned me down,” said Blackstone. He relit his cigar. “It was too soon. When he can’t stand the pressure any longer, he’ll come over here. Another month, another half year, certainly less than a year. And when he comes, he’ll confirm what we find out or intuit in the meantime.”
“I don’t like it,” said Camden. “I’ve been loyal to you for all these years . . .”
“If I was firing you, Ed, I’d tell you up front,” replied Blackstone. “You know me well enough to be aware of that. But something happened that they don’t want anyone to know about, and they’ve kept it secret for fifty years. Now suddenly it’s starting to seep out. They’re going to clamp down, and clamp down hard. That’s obvious.”
“Then what’s this all about?”
“They’re going to have to tell Jerry what happened, so he doesn’t inadvertently give us enough leads so that we can find out ourselves.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“If Myshko was eaten by Moon lizards, he couldn’t say it jokingly, and he couldn’t firmly deny it. The first would start people thinking, and the second would start them digging.”
“But Myshko came back,” Camden pointed out.
“That was just an example, Ed.” Blackstone made no attempt to hide his disgust with his underling for not being able to follow his train of thought. “Don’t try so hard to convince me that I should replace you.”
There followed a few awkward minutes. Camden didn’t know what to say, and Blackstone began feeling guilty about humiliating him. He finally sent him back to his office and spent the rest of the afternoon pacing his own restlessly, trying for the hundredth time to dope it out: What are they hiding, and why are they hiding it at this late date? What could possibly have happened that would still affect anything? If it would make a flight to the Moon more dangerous, why won’t they tell us? They know I’m going to send up a manned flight within a year. Surely they can’t want an American ship, which will be viewed as an American mission by everyone outside the country, to blow up or crash because of something they could have told us about and decided, for some reason, not to. So if the mission won’t be endangered by our lack of knowledge, what is so goddammed important that they’re lying like rugs?
They had to be lying. That was the one certainty. But about what?
He had to force himself to look at it logically.
The ship took off. Check.
The ship circled the Moon. Check.
The ship returned to Earth on schedule. Check.
What the hell could have happened?
He walked to the window and stared out—and up—again. And suddenly he began to get excited. It was almost there, almost within his mental reach. He stood perfectly still, trying to stem his excitement, to just concentrate on the problem—and finally he had it!
He knew what had happened, why they had lied—and if he couldn’t force the president to tell the country (and he was sure he couldn’t, because the president would never admit to lying to the electorate), and he couldn’t get Jerry to show him the data he needed, he was going public with what he thought had happened and making the government confirm or deny it before he took off.
Yes, he concluded mentally. To hell with a pair of pilots and three scientists. This was important enough to lose a scientist and add a billionaire cowboy who had figured it out.
4
Jerry was on hand to greet Frank Kirby when he came through the doors of the Hall of Fame. Despite what Jerry had expected, he did not appear feeble. He was permanently confined to a wheelchair, but his voice was strong, and he shook hands with the grip of a professional wrestler. “Jerry,” he said, smiling broadly, “it’s good to see you again.”
“And you, Frank. Welcome home.”
He’d been accompanied by several family members although his wife had remained in Orlando. “Janet asked me to say hello,” he said. “She wanted to come but just wasn’t up to making the trip.”
He introduced a son and daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren, both probably in their thirties. Mary came over, and they did another round of introductions. The son, whose name was also Frank, thanked Mary for arranging the event. “Dad has done a lot for Orlando,” he said, “since his retirement.” Ordinarily, Jerry knew, she would have passed credit for the idea to him, but on this occasion she let it go. Best not to connect him with the award.
They strolled into the main dining area, where Kirby got a surprise: Several friends from his NASA years had been brought in. They surrounded him, laughed, offered toasts, shook hands, embraced, introduced family members, and talked about the old days. A gray-haired woman leaning on a cane flashed a wide smile. “It’s good to see you again, Frank,” she said. “How many years has it been?”